I've been in the IT industry since the time of the dinosaurs (ICL anyone?). I've written books about the Internet and networking, consulted for all sorts of companies, and been a contributor and columnist for Network World for 18 years (check out my Backspin and Gearhead columns). I created and co-founded Netratings (now wholly owned by Nielsen) and have CTO'ed for a couple of startups. I live in Ventura, CA. I do not surf.

Believing in Cold Fusion and the E-Cat

So, it turns out that any concerns you might have had over Harold Camping’s prediction that the world would end on October 21, can now be put aside: The world is still here (as far as I can determine) and humanity is still busy going about its evil ways which involve consuming energy at a staggering rate … and that leads me nicely to this week’s revisiting of the topic of my blog posting two weeks ago, “Hello Cheap Energy, Hello Brave New World“.

As I discussed in that posting, an inventor by the name of Andrea Rossi has developed what he claims to be a simple system for generating what would be, essentially, endless and incredibly cheap energy.

On October 28th the biggest test of Rossi’s system, which is called the E-Cat, was conducted in Italy and some results were made public which I’ll discuss in a moment.

Before that I do, let me give you a quick refresh: The E-Cat, which is short for “Energy Catalyzer”, is claimed to produce a “Low Energy Nuclear Reaction” or LENR. LENR is another name for “cold fusion” or CF (LENR is considered a more acceptable term than CF which was discredited after two world-class researchers, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, announced that they had a working cold fusion system but which, alas, no one could duplicate).

Allow me to digress for a moment to ask all of you who sent me messages in tones ranging from polite through to downright rude asserting that cold fusion has actually been successfully duplicated: If an experiment that demonstrates cold fusion has really been replicated in the real world by real scientists then why would the scientific community ignore something so profound? Everyone agrees that cold fusion would be a game changer and in itself would be a hugely important scientific discovery so why would anyone in the scientific community ignore an important, successful, and replicable experiment?

Rossi’s E-Cat is claimed to use a secret catalyst to react hydrogen with nickel and, in the process, transmute the nickel into copper producing considerable heat. Whether this reaction works or not and if it does, exactly how it works, has been enormously contentious and the subject of numerous learned and amateur debates.

Rossi has previously conducted several demonstrations of the E-Cat and the publicly revealed results have done little to convince the skeptics but have driven the “Believers” into a frenzy of support, accusations of cover-ups by “The Man”, and endless hyping of other energy generating solutions.

The skeptics fall into two camps: Those who flatly don’t believe that Rossi’s E-Cat could ever work at all, and those who take a rather more objective stance and, whether they are hopeful of a positive outcome or not, are deferring judgment until convincing results are produced.

I would include myself in the latter: I really hope the E-Cat works as claimed but I want to see proof; real, verifiable, scientifically valid proof.

Many of those who argue that the E-Cat is flat out impossible and that the whole thing is a mistake at best or a fraud at worst are serious scientists and, you have to admit, they have a point; how could something like the E-Cat work in defiance of known science?

Even so, to be completely dismissive of Rossi’s claims would seem to be foolish as it is one thing to *believe* something is false based on your assumptions and quite another to be able to *prove* beyond a reasonable doubt that it is false.

While the hard core skeptics might be erring in one direction, the Believers are erring in a completely opposite way. Despite a lack of solid evidence and based on the slim, unverifiable test data from the E-Cat trials revealed to date, they still just believe. They post in blogs, in forums, and on Web sites long and often impassioned arguments based on their interpretations of physics, quantum mechanics, chemistry, string theory, numerology, and maybe even the divination of goat entrails. I find most of these arguments impossible to understand let alone refute because unless you really are a real physicist or chemist (or goat entrails reader) the “proofs” are usually impenetrable jungles of mathematics (or entrails).

A subgroup of the Believers which I shall call the “Suppresists”, appear to be firmly convinced that there is a conspiracy by commercial interests and or the government to prevent any device that upsets the energy economy status quo from being developed and made public. There is, of course, no objective, verifiable foundation to these claims but that doesn’t seem get in the way of the “Suppresists” … disagree with them and you must be either ignorant or in the pay of “The Man.”

The other sub-group I alluded to is the “It Has Already Been Solved” lobby. These people are convinced that company X or inventor Y has cracked the world energy problem and often argue vehemently that whatever Rossi is doing has already been done. They have sent me to Web sites where obscure companies show often fairly polished presentations of how their systems work and, in some cases, videos of supposedly working prototypes. Of course, there’s never anything you can buy or, for that matter, any third party scientifically valid test results but that doesn’t stop the “It Has Already Been Solved” lobby. They just believe.

From the way they argue I’d guess that many of the Believers probably also wear tin-foil hats. Some of the messages I’ve received from people who appear to be in this group are astounding not just for their lack of basic grammar but for their inability to express coherent thought.

So, before we look at the results of the E-Cat test on the 28th, what of Rossi and the E-Cat? Why has he been so cagey and secretive about the E-Cat and not permitted a reputable third party to conduct an objective performance test? Well, there appear to be two plausible explanations.

The first is that Rossi is honestly mistaken and he just believes the E-Cat works and produces excess energy when, in fact, it doesn’t. This is something that has happened before (Pons and Fleischmann appear to have been similarly mistaken) but it’s hard to believe as Rossi has been collaborating with a well-credentialed physicist and emeritus professor from Bologna University, Sergio Focardi. A failure of this kind would be a sad and unfortunate conclusion for all concerned as they would be discredited and reviled.

The other explanation is that the whole thing is a fraud and that the E-Cat doesn’t work at all. This too is hard to swallow because there would be no obvious upside. What benefit could either Rossi or Focardi hope to gain?

Sure, there may be some money involved but I doubt whether it would be a large enough amount to justify what would be an usually elaborate and public hoax and whoever the funds came from would, almost certainly, start legal proceedings (if not retain the services of a “mechanic”).

As with the case of the E-Cat being a mistake, the end result of it being a scam would also result in Rossi and Focardi being discredited and reviled. So unless Rossi has also discovered a way to vanish with the cash, the E-Cat being a fraud seems as unlikely as it being a mistake.

But here’s what I find so odd about Rossi and his project: If the E-Cat works and Rossi is just being cagey to maximize the financial benefits, he’s going about getting rich completely the wrong way. A working CF system (or, if you prefer, LENR system) would be one of most valuable, if not the most valuable, inventions in the history of mankind.

Quite inexplicably, Rossi has apparently choosen to go it alone and, it has been reported, has even sold his home to finance development of the E-Cat! This makes no sense. Rossi could have approached Bill Gates or Paul Allen or Warren Buffett or any of thousands of wealthy individuals and institutions and if the device could be proven to work, he would have been given a blank check! Should that not have been enough all he’d have to do is license the system at, say, $1 per year per kilowatt he’d become the richest person ever within a few years.

So, if Rossi isn’t in it for the money, then what else could he be in it for? If his goal was the betterment of mankind, he’s going about it in a very strange way. If it’s for fame and glory, his current way of promoting the E-Cat makes no sense.

Whatever rationale Rossi has for the way he’s developed, promoted, and presented the E-Cat is a complete mystery so we’ll just have to wait to see how the whole drama plays out.

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Just a note on a couple of points. You state that no one has duplicated Pons and Fleishman’s work and that, if anyone reputable had, it would not be ignored. I have no dog in this fight but have been following this topic since I stumbled onto it this Spring. I initially greeted the whole Rossi matter and LENR with amusement but have seen my judgement tempered over time as I’ve looked into the topic further. In fact, from what I can tell, a lot of good work by reputable people has been done in this area over the last twenty years since the Pons and Fleischman announcement. In particular I’d point you to the work done by SPAWAR The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command research.missouri.edu/vcr_seminar/U%20of%20Mo/spawar.ppt and by Dr. Robert Duncan of the University of Missouri who has organized several conferences on the topic (talks from these conferences by different researchers, many of whom seem credible to me, are available on Youtube. Google Duncan and LENR). Dennis Bushnell, head of research at NASA’s Langeley facility, has, apparently, seen enough to have stated on several occasions that he feels that LENR, particularly using a nickel hydrogen system, is the most promising renewable energy technology. http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/06/01/nasas-bushnell-lenr-most-promising-energy-alternative-and-its-not-fusion/ (transcript of a podcast from EV World)

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency did its own poking around was convinced by 2006 that there was real science being done in the area and that it warranted further research. http://newenergytimes.com/v2/government/DTRA/DTRA-Report-on-LENR.shtml

Of course, the military checks out most anything that looks promising (or threatening) and the rest of these folks could be fools but I don’t think so.

As to why no one would take this topic seriously even if reputable scientists had evidence that the effect was real, that is simply human nature. Cold Fusion and LENR are considered junk science. Anyone who shows an interest in the area is immediately regarded with suspicion. This would be true whether there was anything to it or not. To quote Max Planck “A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” There may be something to this, there may not. Personally, I think there is. What is certainly true, however, is that people tend to be skeptical of new ideas, even when they are supported by people they’ve trusted in the past and if the idea is far out, they tend to react in one of two ways. They can either start to believe or they deride the former “expert” as a fool. If you don’t believe that, look no further than your inbox. As to Rossi, I don’t know. I find the whole thing… incredible (literally) either way I look at it. I do believe, at this point, that he believes in what he is doing. I can’t account for his behavior in any other way. If its a scam I suppose we’ll know soon enough. If it isn’t, then we will be faced with the fact that someone is out there shipping out heating plants based on a technology that most people equate with unicorns and magic beans. Either way, it’s quite a story.

However having read his profile (at http://newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/RossiECat/RossiPetroldragonStory.shtml) and seeing that the wikipedia articles are little more than threadbare condemnations of his previous work, I can only wish him luck on the chance that this is genuine.

Or even if he isn’t. With his previous treatment, who can blame him for a “if you can’t beat em, join em” attitude and wanting to turn a quick, easy buck instead of spending another decade on a half-philantropic venture that is suddently and questionably legislated into illegality.

As solvable energy problems go, wouldn’t it make more sense to see if we can get thorium reactors to be commercially viable as they are do in China and India? There’s nothing pie-in-the-sky about nuclear reactors using thorium. We know they work and thorium is common enough. We just need to develop them to the point where they’re profitable.

Absolutely dismissing that the e-cat works is about as narrow-minded and likely to lead to error as automatically deleting from your email every message that begins with “Dear sir, please do not take this in the wrongly but I am finance minister of Nigeria with the proposal of business for you…”. I mean, is it POSSIBLE that one of these message is legit and you’ll soon be stinking rich? In a philosophical sense, yes, it is *possible*, just as it is *possible* I can buy lottery tickets in 5 different state lotteries and hit the jackpot in each and every one. Is it remotely worth even the tiniest bit of effort to try to verify each claim, just in case? No. No, it is not.

An anonymous and unverifiable customer claims the e-cat works. Yeah, right. Most scams have multiple participants, all playing roles, including, often, the role of the “skeptic” who finally becomes “convinced”. If you watch a 3-card monte game in any city, you’ll see the obvious scammer — the shabbily dressed, fast talking, man running the game, playing his role to perfection. Then comes along the inobvious scammer — the suit-and-tie wearing middle aged businessman who plays a few rounds, sometimes losing, but sometimes winning, and eventually walks away with a profit. He may voice all the doubts the crowd feels, even try to “trick” the card sharp into showing how he’s palming cards or otherwise performing tricks, but he’ll fail. His role is to make other people think the game is fair — or, even if it’s NOT fair, that the scammer is incompetent and so can be outwitted and beaten. Isn’t it great if you out-smart the guy who is trying to our-smart you? Won’t that show how clever you are, this guy’s trying to con you, but you’re faster than him and you’ll get HIS money? Yeah. You go ahead.

(I would not be surprised if the person to whom Rossi allegedly sold his house to be a confederate and part of the entire scam.)

“Freeenergysystems.com” is self-evidently part of the scam; there a dozen or more sites “reporting” on the e-cat that are obviously all shells run by the same people. It never occurred to me that someone could google something like this, see a dozen “different” sites that all report the same thing and that have few or no links from sites outside the network, and NOT immediately see the obvious… but I guess I was wrong, and I guess that’s why the Nigerian scam still works.

The Rossi scam has reached the final stage. Now, he will either be flooded with “orders” which he will put off meeting until he’s managed to rack up enough money to flee to some nice place with no extradition treaties, or, more likely, he’ll plead one delay after another while slowly passing the money through various shells, finally pleading bankruptcy and, most likely, declaring HIMSELF the victim of cons or dishonest dealing with “suppliers” who stole all his money, or who were “forced” to not provide him with the goods by “the international energy concerns”, leaving him with no money to refund (forcing people to settle for pennies on the dollar, if that). If he ships any devices and they “stop working”, he’ll claim they were “tampered with” and the victims will get no compensation; he will have any number of “satisfied customers” on call to serve as shills, at least until the heat gets too hot; then he might go with “Well, there were unexpected effects we haven’t worked out, but we’ve spent all your money on research and, tell you what, when I invent the NEXT version, you’ll all get a discount!”, or some version of this. The end game can play out in ways that are different on the surface, but identical underneath: He has all the money, his victims have none. Many will not pursue the matter too hard for fear of looking like fools; they’d rather accept any excuse he makes if it saves them face. I’m sure he’s very good at appearing sincere and contrite.

The notion that this is not a fraud is based on the observation that there is no long term benefit — no “exit strategy.” Madoff’s Ponzi scheme had no likely exit strategy either. maybe he was hoping for some market crash to claim he lost all, or was somewhat delusional on luck providing him with an exit.

Rossi does have an historical doppleganger if you will in the persona of Robert Goddard. Goddard was by most accounts extremely paranoid and secretive although he had 214 patents in rocketry and space flight research. “Though his work in the field of space research was revolutionary, he was sometimes ridiculed in the press for his theories concerning spaceflight. As a result, he became protective of his privacy and his work.” (Wikipedia)

I see Andrea Rossi as the same type of researcher. Ultimately I believe that his work will prove to be valid. I also think that he wants to be the first to market the device that he is building as the physics will only be understood by others. Also his behavior all fits if the device is so simple that anyone can build it in their garage. He feels as if he is in a race.

There is also another personality on the field. Dr. Dennis Bushnell of NASA Langley is researching the Nickel-Hydrogen LENR as well and has made favorable remarks. Though he appears more or less only willing to confirm that he is working on a theory for the model.

That’s not how science works. If it’s all on the level, he shouldn’t be afraid of anything and should make it clear that his magic device will revolutionize the world.

If it doesn’t work and/or he wants to scam people, then he will obfuscate his device and its results and not provide a clear picture of how it works.

It sounds like it’s the latter scenario that is playing out. If people running cold fusion experiments don’t want to be compared to perpetual motion artists, then don’t act like them. If people act like Rossi then they shouldn’t be surprised if no “mainstream” scientist will believe them. Frankly, no “non-mainstream” scientists or non-scientists should believe him either until the details are clearly presented in an unambigous way.

There is a third group of skeptics– the ones that think that there is evidence that Rossi may be running a scam. The evidence is that he has been told by capable scientists and engineers over and over again how to prove that his device actually works and he has not done so.

The method is technically simple and straightforward but there’s no point in explaining the engineering of it here. What’s important is that the tests must be done independent of Rossi.

Thus far, all of Rossi’s tests were done using his power supply, his supply of coolant fluid, and his measuring instruments for both power in and power out. Rossi also insists on generating steam which complicates and confuses the measurements and is completely unnecessary.

Even worse, Rossi never calibrates the system by running a “blank” test. That would be a test in which hydrogen is omitted and the power measurement method is tested with an electrical heater.

Rossi’s tests are always brief — a few hours instead of the days or weeks that they should run in order to rule out stored energy hidden inside the devices. Why are they so short? Do Rossi and his associates have something more important to do other than prove this technology is real? The shortness of the test suggests that somehow Rossi is cheating by storing energy in his machines or by producing it in a manner other than the one he claims.

The so-called megawatt plant is unnecessary and undesirable for proving that the technology is real. It’s much easier and just as convincing to test a 10 kilowatt machine

Rossi behaves in every way like someone who is running a classic free energy scam. Many such scams have succeeded for long periods and have netted the perpetrators millions of dollars.

The way Rossi can show this is not a scam is very easy. An independent test by a university or government lab, done on one of the smaller machines, should not take more than two weeks or require more than a few thousand dollars in costs. The test need not reveal any trade secrets if it is done treating the E-cat as a “black box”.

Why does he not get this done? Why has he not had it done in the last 9 or more months this issue has been discussed widely on the internet?